Frivolous Friday

Well this is a cool video.Horror movies have changed a lot in the past 122 years (hell, I didn’t know film has been around that long). Brazilian film critic and editor Diego Carrera has created a fascinating visualization of that evolution by creating a video with a short clip of one horror movie from every year starting in 1895 and ending in 2016. I was glad to see Halloween make the cut in this video, as it’s my all-time favorite horror movie. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the film, but one thing remains the same no matter how often I see it: I still get scared shitless. I know exactly when Michael is going to strike. How he’s going to kill his victims. That he’s a sadistic asshole with a perverse sense of humor (seriously, he kills Bob and then pretends to be him in a ghost costume to fool his girlfriend Lynda whom he goes on to kill). It’s pretty amazing to think that Carpenter helped usher in the slasher genre by creating the movie on a shoestring budget. More, it’s a testament to the strength of his directorial ability that the movie largely holds up over the decades. Sure, certain aesthetics are different today (landlines with those damn cords that always get tangled up; fashion; vehicles, etc), but it wouldn’t take much tweaking of the movie to make it fit into the 21st century. Even the dialogue wouldn’t need much changing. Of course it wouldn’t fit well with today’s approach to horror movies since there was no blood, and filmmakers today love their blood spatter. I wish modern movie makers would take a few notes from the movies of yesteryear. Don’t know about anyone else, but I could do with less gore and blood and more tension and suspense in my scary movies.

Nick Kapur is a U.S. based historian who specializes in modern Japan and East Asia. Recently he created a map of Japanese stereotypes of European countries. The map, which is based on Japanese Google autocomplete suggestions, reveals some interesting stereotypes Japanese people hold about various countries. For instance, they view Sweden as a place with handsome men. I’m single and would love to have a handsome man in my life (though he’d have to be more than just a good looking guy). Perhaps a trip to Sweden is in order one day. Meanwhile, the Japanese apparently think of England as a place with bad food. I’m curious about this one, bc I know nothing about English food (aside from their use of vinegar on fries…yuck). I wonder if there are specific dishes that are thought of as bad. There are also stereotypes that make some degree of sense (looking at y’all Switzerland, Greece, and Italy). And then there are the stereotypes that make me confuzzled. Why is Portugal perceived as weak? France has no fat people? And what’s up with Latvia?